Wednesday, December 28, 2011

We left Yehuda last week in Parashat Miketz swearing to his father that he would return with Binyamin in tow. He swears to Yaakov that if he does not return with Binyamin, that he would “bear the blame forever” (43:8).

Taking a step back, it is quite remarkable to see the arc of Yehuda’s journey from the beginning of our “Joseph narrative” in Parashat Vayeshev, beginning in Chapter 37. There, we see a character who influences his brothers to sell Joseph for the highest price possible. “Why kill him, when we can benefit,” he questions openly and coercively. He is not the oldest in the family, but his brothers respect him — and he knows it. So he is going to use that power to get what he wants.

Then in Chapter 38, his daughter-in-law tricks him, ensuring that her dead husband’s progeny will come from his lineage, an ultimate act of thinking outside of herself, for the sake of God (see my d’var Torah from Vayeshev for more details on this). When Yehuda learns that the child Tamar is bearing is his, he can only proclaim, “Tzadka mimeni She is more righteous than I!” Yehuda’s outpouring of emotion steadily moves from pure self-righteous ego-centrism, to a more holistic view of his family and the world at large.

It is here that we encounter Yehuda in this week’s parasha. The introductory words of the parasha describe in both words and deeds the noted change of demeanor in the heir to the Messiah. “Vayigash elav Yehuda Then Yehuda approached him.”

Yehuda approaches Yosef with an impassioned plea to release Binyamin. But look closely at his arguments:

1.Do you have a father or a brother?

2.The child cannot leave is father, for if he does, his father will surely die

3.We told our father your request and told him that if we do not come with the youngest child, we will not be able to see you again

4.My father said that one of my sons born to my beloved is surely torn in pieces, and if you take my other son of this wife, I will surely die

5.I (Yehuda) have sworn to my father that I will return with him, saying that I shall bear the blame forever if I don’t hold my word

6.I pray to you, take me instead of the youngest, for how can I look my father in the face and tell him that his youngest son is not here

None of this is rational. No case studies on where Binyamin was in reference to when the goblet was stolen. No use of witnesses.

Yehuda seeks to evoke empathy from the man in front of him, the second most powerful person in the world. Moreover, he is arguing for the life of a known criminal. Yehuda has no doubt that Binyamin took the goblet — he was caught red-handed. All the evidence in the world was couched against him.

But despite this, Yehuda pleas on behalf of his brother.

The Biblical scholar Yochanan Muffs describes this mode of standing up for those that are guilty in his influential essay “Who will stand in the breach” (1992, found in Love and Joy). It features a model of the prophet whose key role is not a scolder or occasional comforter, but rather is the defender of the people. As Professor Ed Greenstein notes, the prophet is often “His majesty’s loyal opposition.” In essence, he states, “You’ll have to take me down, too!”

Such is certainly the case of Moshe’s defense of the people after the golden calf episode, when Moses pleads with God against destroying the people that he just redeemed from Egypt. There is no doubt that the people are guilty there. They just built a giant false-God out of gold.

So too is it with Binyamin in our narrative. Yehuda doesn’t try to appease the man in front of him. That won’t work. His brother, as far as everyone in the narrative knows, is guilty.

Rather he employs pathos, the energy and feeling of the prophet to sway the most powerful man he has ever encountered.

And after all of this energy, Yosef breaks down: V’lo yachol Yosef l’hitapek Joseph could not bear it any longer (45:1). He sends out everyone from the room and lets out tears.

Yehuda has the chance to put his word to his father to the ultimate test. “Take me and not my brother,” he insists. And because he puts himself on the line, imploring the man who will reveal himself later as his brother, ultimately Yosef reveals his true self to his brothers. Yehuda’s bearing of himself, in turn, provides a model for how Yosef can do so.

Over the course of the “Joseph narrative,” Yehuda goes from the manipulator to the manipulated. He goes from the person who thought entirely about his own material interests, of how he could use his power to bring goods to him, to an act of ultimate sacrifice, giving himself up for a brother that he knows is guilty of a crime.

We, the Jewish people, live the life of Judah every time we recognize ourselves as a people, as Yehudim. As Yehudim, we internalize the lessons of Yehuda over the course of this narrative, a character who stands in the breach for the other, who upholds family kinship as the essential value in his life.

Yehuda represents the model of teshuva — returning to a primordial self. He finds himself in the same situation a second time, and acts a completely different way. Now, in Parashat Vayigash, he thinks of how he can affect change for others.

Saturday, December 17, 2011

For the next four weeks we will read about Joseph. His ego, his clothes, his dreams, his family relationships, his engagement with power. In many ways, the Torah gives us a fuller description of the full character of Joseph than any other figure in the Torah, with the exception of Moses.

But we also see a narrative arc for the character Judah, too. In this week’s parasha, Vayeshev, Judah leaps onto the scene while Joseph remains in the depths of a pit. He tells his brothers “What profit is it to us if we kill our brother, covering his blood. Come let us sell him to the band of Ishmaelites. Then our bloodguilt will not be upon him, for he is our brother.” The verse ends “And his brothers listened” (Genesis 37:26).

Those final words are telling. Judah is not the oldest. That title belongs to Reuven. And a few verses earlier, Reuven had pleaded with the group not to kill Joseph, but rather to throw him in the pit, with the idea that Reuven would go save him later (verse 21). But while not the oldest in years, the brothers listen to Judah, they respect him.

Make no mistake, Judah most certainly was not acting altruistically in selling Joseph to the Ishmaelites. It was not to save Joseph’s life. If anything, it seems that Judah could have changed the tide of the brothers thinking in almost any case, and that he was directing it. The Torah Temimah (Rabbi Baruch Epstein, 19th century Lithuania) states the following about this leader of the brothers:

This verse about a compromiser was stated only in reference to Judah, as it is stated, "Judah said to his brothers, 'What gain will there be if we kill our brother?'" And anyone who praises Judah for this is considered a blasphemer. And concerning such a person, it is stated: "One who praises a compromiser [Judah] has blasphemed Hashem."

We hear about Judah again in chapter 38, the infamous meeting between Judah and his daughter-in-law Tamar. We rarely talk about this chapter. It represents a law of times gone by, that of the levirate marriage, of values that don’t resonate with almost all of our post-modern sensibilities. And perhaps it’s a bit icky, as well.

Stemming explicitly from Deuteronomy 25:5-6, should a man die without having a descendent, his wife will marry his brother, in order to continue the lineage. Such was the case of Tamar’s husband, Er, who died. His brother Onan, in turn refused this process of levirate marriage, choosing to spill his seed on the ground instead of conceive a child with Tamar.

Fast-forwarding in the narrative, upon confronting Tamar on the road, Judah thought that he was approaching a harlot, for she hid her face. But Tamar knew exactly who Judah was. She took his cord and his staff as a sign (the modern day driver’s license or passport) so that he would return with payment for the sexual services. She encountered Judah and fooled him to sleep with her, moreover, because she was obeying this law of levirate marriage, ensuring that her husband’s progeny continue on to the next generation — Judah had not told his other son Shelah to consummate the levirate obligations, and thus Tamar took it upon herself to continue the line, in accord with God’s law.

Judah was incensed when he heard that Tamar was pregnant, that she had sold herself to harlotry. Of course, he didn’t realize during this episode that the children were his. But Tamar came forth with Judah’s identifying markers, proof that the children were indeed his.

This twist in narrative in the course of two chapters, of Judah manipulating his brothers to sell Joseph for profit, and then being themanipulated by his daughter-in-law, is certainly striking. As is Judah’s response to Tamar when he discovers the reality of the situation. He exclaims, seemingly in an outburst: “She is more righteous than I! For I did not give her to son Shelah!” Judah realizes his misjudgment, and begins the process of teshuva that will continue on into future parshiot.

The twins she bore might have familiar names: Peretz and Zevach. Each week during L’cha dodi of Kabbalat Shabbat we read: Al yad ish, ben parzi Next to a man, the son of the Peretz-ite. The line of the medieval poem refers to the Messiah, a descendent of Peretz. Judah is the ancestor of David. The line of the Messiah ultimately goes back to this tumultuous scene in Chapter 38 of Genesis.

I’ll again pick up with this narrative of Judah in two weeks with Parashat Vayigash. For now, read this narrative over, embracing the complexity of the character, of the narrative of arc of manipulation.

And perhaps most importantly, in two chapters where God does not communicate with any of the characters, there is a figure behind the screen seemingly pulling the strings of puppets along the way.

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The above picture is of Benedict Spinoza, perhaps the most famous excommunicated Jew in history. Certainly top 5. While in Amsterdam, I decided he needed a hat.
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